Baldur's Gate 2 was quite simply the best RPG ever made. I have yet to see another game which gives you so many possible companions, each one with a well developed personality, so many classes, each one with a different stronghold, etc.

Icewind Dale was nice but lacked the depth of BG, it was too much focused on fighting.

NWN... well, it's a game for multiplayer, because the single player game really, really, really sucked (compared to BG, at least).

NWN 1 i thought had a pretty decent single player option but it was very linear.

I felt very, very disappointed with NWN 1 single player. It felt like a colossal step back from BG from every possible POV; the world lacked depth - cities were half empty, most buildings you couldn't get in, NPCs with whom you could not interact; the story was simplistic, and many quests seemed concocted in a hurry; and, ONE party member? You got to be kidding me . Before BG 2, it would have been OK; after it, and from the same software house, it felt almost embarrassing!

True, you got valid points about the singleplayer from NWN although you must not forget that actually it was only meatn to be a multiplayer game and the singleplayer was just to show the fans what could be done with the models.

My biggest annoyance with nwn 1 was after having finished it that the only different thing you can do is try to do your quests in a different order. Yet no matter what, after the second big quest that you did in every city, the other two became very easy as you were at a to high level.

NWN 2 uses the companionsystem of Kotor btw. Interesting but i many times forget talking to them so i dont get much plots done.

I'm practising a bit of thread necromancy here, but I've been playing NWN Diamond Edition for a wee while now. I bought a version of it years ago, and wasn't very good. A couple of years ago I bought the Diamond Edition from GOG.com and started again (this time having had some experience of MERPing, which helped a lot, both with choosing the right character and also just making the right decisions). I'm currently on Chapter 2, in the creator level 3, about to battle the first three creator sorcerers. I've died once already and I think I'm going to change my companion (I've currently got the cleric). I've yet to figure out how to summon my animal companion too (I'm a level 9 Elf Ranger) - but I think I might know what's going wrong with it.

Anyway, I thought I'd resurrect this thread for anyone who's still playing these games.

<-- Celebrating Science in the TVM!

Life is short; break the rules, forgive quickly; kiss slowly; love truly; laugh uncontrollably; and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for the might-have-beens. - Arthur Ransome

Just because I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor doesn't mean I'm not a lady.

I played NWN and completed it a few years ago. Just for the heck of it, I've started it up again and am in the Dock's district.I'm playing a half Elf fighter with Tommy as my companion.I've taken a bit of a break from it right now.

I have purchased Icewind Dale 1 and 2 from gog And got to the very last bad guy in #1 and had a TPKStarted #2 and wasn't too impressed with it But will get around to playing it.

Currently I am playing "The Witcher"Another game bought on gog.That is one gritty game. Do NOT recommend it for anyone under 18.

Thanks, Calma. I have to say I'm very impressed with how well I'm getting on with NWN considering how awful I was the first time! I had no experience at role-playing, so I just charged about and had no money (because I didn't realise I should be investigating every crate, box, and chest I came across ) so I couldn't hire a henchman and therefore went sauntering off to the Docks district and very quickly got killed! The second time I knew better.

This time the only thing that's giving me trouble is the severe lack of instructions on how to cast spells (such as the summon animal companion). Much searching on the internet has probably solved the problem, but one shouldn't have to do that.

I've got a few games from GOG in their sales that I haven't got into yet - I want to finish NWN first. But since I've heard such good things about Baldur's Gate, I might see if I can get them too. The one problem with playing on my desktop is that our computer chair isn't very comfortable! Still, it does stop me from playing too much.

Happy gaming, Calma.

<-- Celebrating Science in the TVM!

Life is short; break the rules, forgive quickly; kiss slowly; love truly; laugh uncontrollably; and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for the might-have-beens. - Arthur Ransome

Just because I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor doesn't mean I'm not a lady.

I haven't played a spell user in NWN, so I can't help you there.But there should be a tutorial in the game that shows you how to use spells.I had a heads up on rpg's, because I play D&D and I know to look in EVERYTHING!

I tried Balder's Gate and really didn't like it.Though every review I've read gives it 4 or 5 stars.Another one is Diablo. I've never played it, but I hear tell it's good.

Another one I have that I really enjoy is The Legend of Grimrock.It's a dungeon crawl that is really fun.

In NWN, there's three ways to cast spells, IIRC: One is right-click, and then on the contextual menu wheel select your (class) spells, spell level, etc. etc. Then there's the quickspell list (check your keybindings on how to open that). And finally, cast a spell from a quickslot.

Do note, if you are not playing a class that can cast spontaneously (i.e. not a Bard, Favoured Soul or Sorcerer), you will need to prepare spells (using spellbook, drag & drop to the empty spells/day slots) and rest to learn spells.

The familiar or companion can be summoned similarly by right-clicking yourself etc. or from a quickslot. Since the "summon familiar" is not a spell but a skill, you don't see it in the spellbook, naturally.

How to add stuff to a quickslot: You can drag & drop items, skills, feats, or spells. In case of skills, feats and spells, you can also right-click the quickslot and select the thingie from the contextual menu. (In case of dual wielding or main hand + shield, you can also drag two things into one quickslot.)

Thanks, Mithfindel. I got it sorted today and ended up being followed around by two badgers for a while. One summoned and one animal companion. From what I can recall, to summon one, I have to click on myself and to get the animal companion, I had to click on the ground (which is what I wasn't doing before). I knew about the memorising spells and resting part, but of course the clicking on the ground bit passed me by!

Calma, I don't like to play heavy magic users, because for me it makes my life too confusing, but I like having a few spells that being a Ranger offers. I've just started multi-classing as a rogue now too, the best part of which is sneak attacks. Since Tomi is my companion, we can deal quite a bit of damage in sneak attacks now.

<-- Celebrating Science in the TVM!

Life is short; break the rules, forgive quickly; kiss slowly; love truly; laugh uncontrollably; and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for the might-have-beens. - Arthur Ransome

Just because I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor doesn't mean I'm not a lady.